Model-Based Design Driven by Embedded Systems

"With the integration of multidomain systems, different disciplines that conveniently worked in separate bubbles in the past -- for example, electrical, mechanical, and software -- can no longer afford to do so," Karnofsky says. "To get a design out to market in a reasonable amount of time and to meet requirements requires much more collaboration."

Specifically, The MathWorks says that when collaboration happens far earlier in the design workflow, companies are much better positioned to garner efficiencies and wring costs out of their development processes.

"Once you adopt model-based design, what you get away from is building your first prototype that went together perfectly. Now, to get it to do what your customers expect it to do takes too many rebuilds to understand the design flaws," says Tony Lennon, The MathWorks' industry market manager for industrial automation. "The cost of rework has gotten to the point where companies need to find a way to get work done more cheaply."

Festo's Bionic Handling Assistant, a mechatronic industrial robot arm,
was inspired by the motion of an elephant's trunk.

Dr. Jerry Krasner, chief analyst with Embedded Market Forecasters, a division of American Technology International, conducted a study to drill down into the financial ROI associated with model-based design approaches. The study confirmed an uptick in model-based design adoption over the last six years. Krasner found that 36.6 percent of model-based design deployments in North America had a significant total cost of development advantage over other deployments. Moreover, the number of developers used per project was smaller with model-based design deployments, according to his research.

"Model-based design has significant cost advantages even for smaller designs," Krasner says, and the approach's advantages in rapid prototyping, code generation, and code reuse add to the value proposition. "The ability to move applications to new hardware and to have interoperability for people in different locations for working on the same project is key."

Beth, Excellent article. This approach has a ton of potential for transforming the way that automation/machinery is developed, designed and deployed. It will be interesting to see how this area develops with control vendors. There are some solutions in the marketplace now but this will require different planning and thinking in terms of the machinery development process to gain traction. Interesting.

Thanks Al. I could totally see how this design approach could have huge ramifications for easing the development burden around automation and controls machinery given the high content of software and the complex movements. From all accounts, it's a learning process, however, and a very different development approach than traditional engineering workflows. There is definitely a commitment required to get training for engineers, not just on the tools and software, but on the modeling work itself and how to best adapt it into design processes.

Festo makes an excellent point here, and there are many, many other embedded developed who have the same dilemma: It's often difficult to optimize controller designs by building and testing on physical hardware. This article is going to be a keeper for many embedded developers.

Beth, model based designing and prototyping are very important mile stones in any of the defence and avionic projects. Math lab and simulink are two major software's used for simulation purpose in engineering background. In most of the prototyping projects, spiral models are followed where blocks are building over the existing one in an incremental form.

@Mydesign: You are right--the process is a major milestone, particularly in those industries where embedded systems lie at the heart of system designs. Beyond MATLAB and Simulink, any other tools that you are familiar with that are giving developers a jump on model-based design processes?

Nice post!! It gave the knowledge if how the equipments are developed. Model based designed is an aproach to eveolve a platform for communicating through the entire design process in process of development cycle. The development is carried out through development of a plant, developing a device to control a plant, simulate the device for plant and the plant itself, and lastly intergrating all these.

I think that Al is seeing an emerging trend by industrial automation suppliers to support Model-Based Design. Besides FESTO, B&R Automation, Beckhoff Automation, and Bachmann Electronics all have targets that accept ANSI C-code generated from Simulink models. Siemens, too, offers a means to port C-code to a PC-based controller. This connectivity helps machine builders perform control system design using simulation and implement on their controllers.

MapleSim, from Maplesoft, is a model-based design tool built on a foundation of symbolic computation technology. It handles all of the complex mathematics involved in the development of engineering models, including multi-domain systems, plant modeling, and control design. It is the only comprehensive modeling system built within a natively symbolic framework. Therefore, not only does it save model development time from months to days, but also avoids some of the worst sources of error and computational inefficiencies generated by traditional, numeric-based modeling tools. Leading automotive and aerospace manufacturers, electronics system designers and high-end robotic design engineers are using MapleSim in their work. You can read more about it here: www.maplesim.com

Responding to Tony, I don't think there is any question but that modelling and simulation can be tremendous assets in developing better and more efficient automation control solutions. The key is that it will require a different way of thinking from the past, and probably experimenting with software solutions and sample projects for engineers to get comfortable. Getting past the questions of whether it will be worth it is important, especially since many companies already have their systems modelled already. Good stuff.

One of the big advantage of model-based design centers on breaking the "toss it over the wall" mentality that companies have had for years. Various departments, from marketing down to production had "walls" that blocked communications and thus caused problems. Design changes sometimes got misinterpreted due to lack of proper documentation and lack of regulat communications. By clearly defining system requirements at the start and giving everyone access to them, model-based design techniques help companies complete designs faster and with fewer problems. And because engineers can actually execute the models, they see how circuits, mechanics, and software work together before they build anything.

But, model-based design requires a large commitment of time, talent, and loot and a company that wants to make the jump needs an evangelist who can "sell" others on the virtues and benefits of this approach to designs. Not all engineers will want to jump on the bandwagon, though.

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A Tokyo company, Miraisens Inc., has unveiled a device that allows users to move virtual 3D objects around and "feel" them via a vibration sensor. The device has many applications within the gaming, medical, and 3D-printing industries.

While every company might have their own solution for PLM, Aras Innovator 10 intends to make PLM easier for all company sizes through its customization. The program is also not resource intensive, which allows it to be appropriated for any use. Some have even linked it to the Raspberry Pi.

solidThinking updated its Inspire program with a multitude of features to expedite the conception and prototype process. The latest version lets users blend design with engineering and manufacturing constraints to produce the cheapest, most efficient design before production.

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